A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…

Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Kept Doubters Mum (WSJ)
Snap kicked off the planning for its hotly anticipated initial public offering last year with a brief address from its co-founder, Evan Spiegel, accompanied by a series of nonnegotiable conditions. AdExchanger: Blaming programmatic: Snap resorts to an old publisher script

Adxcel Rebrands as Artsai, Using AI to Consolidate the Marketing Stack (Street Fight)
“We optimize the entire customer lifecycle journey,” says Artsai’s CRO Erik Lundberg. ” We may help someone acquire a new customer on Facebook, then reengage user on programmatic or RTB [real-time bidding], and then help drive the user to make a purchase inside the marketer’s mobile app or landing page.”

­­Uber CEO Says the SoftBank Deal Hasn’t Happened Yet But Will (Recode)
The company has been in talks with SoftBank for a multi-billion dollar investment that would restructure the way Uber’s board operates. Already, in Khosrowshahi’s two months at the company, the board voted to do away with high voting shares as part of the funding agreement. NYT: Uber drivers aren’t self-employed, UK tribunal rules.

Learning to Work on Your Startup Even While Executing on the Day-to-Day (Street Fight)
“Some of the best companies you couldn’t define their market size on day one,” says Foundry Group’s Brad Feld. “Nobody has any idea what their market sizes are. Others a lot of times you think the market size is X and it’s either an order of magnitude bigger or smaller. ”

The Bumpy Road Ahead for AI in Sales, Customer Service (MediaPost)
More companies are expected to deploy various forms of artificial intelligence next year and it looks like many customers aren’t going to be all that happy about it.

How Augmented Reality Is Creating a New Target on Social Media (AdWeek)
James Jorner: As more brands use social media in the traditional form we are all accustomed to, the big giants are slowly incorporating AR to stay ahead. And in the process, a completely new market is being created.

Local Curation Commerce: A Look at Peach’s Curated Commerce (Local Onliner)
“Best of” editions are great media properties for city sites, city magazines and alt weeklies. Can they make the shift to e-commerce? Can they generate leads for a business; generate incremental sales and new customers; and ‘scale’?

Do Cities Still Want a Sharing Economy? (TechCrunch)
The relationships between cities and sharing economy companies have grown and morphed in recent years — in many cases, positively. But, challenges surrounding core municipal issues remain, and many established companies are still grappling with how to adjust to a new business environment.

Digital Assistants Are Changing Business, But They Still Need Human Help (VentureBeat)
Khari Johnson: Machines are getting smarter, but it’s the combination of human and machine intelligence that makes these assistants especially useful, both for businesses and prospective employees writing resumes.

Joe Zappa is the Managing Editor of Street Fight. He joined Street Fight as a contributing writer in 2015, has compiled the daily newsletter since 2016, and has spearheaded the newsroom's editorial operations since 2018. Follow him on Twitter @joe_zappa, and shoot him an email at jzappa@streetfightmag.com.